Sunday, March 22, 2015

Movie Review: "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003)

After letting Dominic Toretto go, Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) has
been stripped of his badge and has since relocated to Miami, where he
makes money by street racing. Right after winning some money on a race, Brian is picked up by the FBI and U.S. Customs. They offer him a deal: if
he will help in the apprehension of a drug smuggler named Carter Verone
(Cole Hauser), who needs a pair of drivers for a special job, his record
will be expunged. Brian agrees, under the condition that he can bring in his
own second driver, his childhood friend Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson), so long as he can get the same deal as Brian.

Somehow, filmmakers managed to
convince Paul Walker to come back for the second installment in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, but the
rest of the cast from the first film decided to sit this one out. As with all
sequels, everyone involved hoped it would outdo its predecessor with fast cars and more...Ludacris...stunts. See what we did there? We're not exactly sure they achieved what they set out to do with this particular sequel, though this
film is probably the start of the truly over-the-topness of the "Fast and Furious" franchise as a whole. The plot of this movie is pretty flimsy, as is the
dialogue, but hey, we don't watch "Fast and Furious" movies for the compelling plots, we watch them for cars and mindless
action, which "2 Fast 2 Furious" has in spades, emphasis on the
mindless part. One thing we can say is that at least it isn't totally boring and has
enough flashing lights and pretty colors to keep us entertained, so long
as we check our brains at the door. Paul Walker, as we mentioned, reprises his role as Brian O'Conner, who is short on emotion but big on chest puffing. How is it possible that we are just now noticing that Paul Walker had little to no inflection in his tone? It's painfully obvious here. This film adds Tyrese to its cast. Ohh, Tyrese...we guess he's fine in this movie for what his purpose is, but there is a scene in the film where we literally thought he was just stripping himself of his shirt for fun, and that's the extent of his role, apart from being Walker's right-hand man. Ludacris is also in this film, following where the original left off by adding rappers relevant at the time of production to its cast list for god knows why. Both of these two stick around for the rest of the sequels, well, except for "Tokyo Drift," which doesn't even have Paul Walker. Together, Walker and Tyrese try to clear their criminal records by working for Carter Verone, played by Cole Hauser, who doesn't come off as a dangerous drug lord, but more intimidating in a high school bully sort of way, if that bully wore tailored Armani suits, lived in a huge mansion and had a billion extra cars and parking lots laying around to screw people with. They have to bring down Verone and have to drive their way down lots of airstrips and alleyways to do so. Eva Mendes serves as this film's Michelle Rodriguez, an attractive Latina who is more than meets the eye, only this time, Mendes is basically useless when compares to Rodriguez, who could at least hold her own in the original. Suffice it to say, and we never thought we'd say this out loud, but we really missed Vin Diesel.

Between the attempts at a forced love story between Mendez and Walker, the casual sexism, cop torturing, drug running, cheesy as hell dialogue, and the tricked out cars filled with neon lights, erotic paintings, tire marks, cloud-bursting buttons, loud thumping rap music blaring from huge speakers and hyperactive camera work to simulate a hit of NOS going to the car's engine at warp speed, it's sort of a recipe for a brilliant disaster. It was all HILARIOUSLY unintentional, but we have come to expect that these movies, at some point, need to draw away from the vroom vroom fast cars for teenager boys and young men and focus on the boom boom pectorals for the teenage girls and young ladies. Note that this is not how we think it should be, but rather a reflection on the filmmaker's obvious attempts to draw in a female viewership. It's safe to say this film is not the best of the "Fast and Furious" series, but there are some unintended LOLs here and there to go along with the loads and loads of mindless action we have so desperately avoided for this long, so why quit with the series now? ONWARD!

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